


Shadows of Winter

by Elsin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4809998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following his fight with Captain America on the helicarrier, the Winter Soldier goes in search of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows of Winter

_“You’re! My! Mission!”_  He vaguely remembers shouting those words, as if from a great distance, his fists thudding into the other man’s face. The fight, and whatever came before it, are hazy in his mind. But the man’s next words are branded into his memory.

 _“Then finish it,”_  he’d said, and the Soldier had hesitated for some reason, his chest heaving with exertion and emotion both. _“Because I’m with you 'til the end of the line.”_  The words had struck some chord deep within him, some chord he hadn’t known existed. _I know him_. He can’t shake the feeling that he _knows_ the other man, but the bare idea is ludicrous. It makes no sense.

Still, he had gone down to the water where the man had fallen, and pulled him out. Then he’d walked away.

 _“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,”_ the man had said, but the name didn’t ring any bells in his head. Still doesn’t. _I know him._ That’s all he knows. The man is important, and he somehow knows the Soldier- or thinks he does, at any rate.

 _“Bucky?”_ he’d said, disbelieving, and the Soldier had answered the question.

 _“Who the hell is Bucky?”_  It wasn’t him; he wasn’t anyone, and the Soldier was just a convenient way to think of himself. It _isn’t_ him. So why is he standing here, a cap pulled low over his face and a coat hiding his metal arm, in front of the Smithsonian Captain America Exhibit, trying to work up the courage to go inside? Well, that’s easy. _I know him._ And he has to know who the other man is- from the news and the costume, the Captain America part was easy enough to figure out- but- it wasn’t Captain America who had known “Bucky.”  Can’t have been. He’d taken of his helmet in the helicarrier- so that the Soldier could see his face? It seems to have been the case.

He shoves his left hand into the pocket of his pants, and goes into the museum. When he sees the first picture of Captain America, he knows he wasn’t wrong. _I know him._ So. His name is “Steve Rogers.”  The name seems to fit him, but it’s as if there’s a wall in the Soldier’s head, a wall keeping him from putting the pieces together.

When he turns to the next part of the exhibit, all the air leaves his lungs, and he actually stumbles back a few steps. This is an exhibit about James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, one of Captain America’s team. Steve Roger’s best friend, in fact. He died, falling out of a train in Europe after a battle. The Soldier tries to ignore, or somehow deny, that Steve Rogers thinks he’s his long-lost best friend, who’s been dead for seventy years, but he can’t when he sees the picture.

Nothing shows on the outside. On the outside, he’s a stoic and calm as he’s been the entire time he’s been here. Inside is a different story. His thoughts circle around and around, because he’s seen himself in mirrors a couple times, seen his reflection in windows a couple more, and this is a picture of him. Can’t be denied. Younger, shorter hair, clean-shaven, but it’s him. The Soldier backs away from the exhibit, then turns to flee.

The streets are crowded full of people, and the Soldier can’t stand to be around them, so he runs. _I know him. I know him. I know him._ When eventually he, even with his enhanced endurance, has to stop, he doesn’t quite know where he is. He’s in a park of some sort; he’s _sure_ he’s been here before, but he still doesn’t know anything about it.

There are fewer people here, and the Soldier surveys the area for threats, only to find none. So he allows himself to slump to his knees, trying to process what he’s just seen.

A flash of memory; _a train car torn apart by a battle within it, and he’s hanging on for dear life. Steve reaches out to him, but he can’t reach far enough, and the metal he’s holding on to rips away from the train.  Bucky falls as Steve screams._ The Soldier jumps to his feet as he comes back to himself, and runs again. He has to get out of there- out of the city, even. _I know him. I know him. I know him. I know him._

 

* * *

 

Maybe a week later- or two, or three, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t really care- he finds himself in New York. Bucky Barnes lived in New York, the exhibit said. The Soldier wonders if he’ll recognize anything- and who knows, maybe he will. He’s been having flashbacks more and more often, and he wishes they’d just go away.

And he wishes that the world didn’t know of him- not of Bucky Barnes, and not of the Winter Soldier. His face is always hidden by a hat these days, and he can’t risk taking his coat off for even a moment. The arm is _far_ too conspicuous.

 _I know him._ Steve Rogers, or Captain America- whatever name you call him, and the Soldier isn’t sure which name that should be- is a legend. A national hero. Bucky Barnes was just a shadow at his side, and the Soldier is just a shadow opposing him. He wishes that neither of them had ever been so much as a shadow. He wishes, more and more, that he had never existed. It would be fitting, considering that all he feels like is a ghost.

One night, though, he finds himself drawn out of the spectre of the past by something- odd- in Hell’s Kitchen. There’s a gym, he can’t quite make out its name in the dim light, and the lights are all out but he can hear someone inside, hitting a punching bag over and over again. Rhythmic. Trained. Not just some amateur.

On some fool instinct, he pushes the door open- why isn’t it locked? The moment he comes in, the punching sounds stop. He doesn’t say a word, and he’s not even sure that he could. He’s been silent for so long. Footsteps. Approaching him, lightly. Not in a fighting state, though- so he doesn’t attack. Instead he waits.

All of a sudden, the lights are on, and he sees that the other occupant of the gym is a man of about thirty, dressed in workout clothes, looking like he’s been at his boxing for hours. He doesn’t quite look at the Soldier when he speaks.

“Looking for a sparring partner?” he asks calmly, like the Soldier isn’t just some random stranger who’s pushed his way into a gym that isn’t his at some ungodly hour of the night.

“Maybe,” the Soldier finally says, after the silence has stretched out for far too long. He’s half-surprised that his rusty voice still works at all. “I’m not really sure.”

“If you want to,” the man says, “I could do that. It’s been a long time since I’ve had an opponent in just boxing.” The Soldier wonders what he means by that, but lets it go.

“Maybe sometime,” the Soldier says finally. “Not… not today.”

“Come back someday, then,” the man says. “I’m Matt Murdock, by the way.” He holds out his hand for shaking, but doesn’t search for the Soldier’s.

“I’ll do that,” the Soldier finally says, and approaches Murdock to take his hand. He seems surprised at the Soldier’s touch, and the Soldier gets a good look at his eyes. It’s only then that he realizes that Murdock’s unfocused, not-quite-the-right-direction gaze is that way for the same reason that his pupils are so dilated, even in the lighted room. Murdock is blind. At the realization, he feels some of the coiled tension leave his body, because there’s no way that Murdock knows who he is: all the news reports he’s seen about him are images and words. Nothing of his voice.

Murdock releases his hand. “Do you have a name?” he asks casually, and the Soldier freezes, keeping his face neutral for no reason except habit even as his heartbeat accelerates, pounding in his ears. _I know him._ The words drift through his head, and he realizes that he knows Steve- he’s even starting to remember things about him, things that no history text would ever have- but Steve doesn’t know him. Not anymore. He takes one deep breath, then another, then a third. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know how rare or common his name is anymore; the Soldier is, in that moment, determined to recreate himself.

“I’m Bucky,” he says, so softly that he barely hears it himself, but Murdock seems to hear him and smiles.

“Nice to meet you, Bucky,” he says, and the Soldier- no, _Bucky_ \- finds his mouth twitching into the slightest hint of a return smile.

“Likewise, Murdock,” he says, and then he leaves the gym. He’s not so sure of this plan, but he’ll be back. If there’s one thing that both Bucky Barnes as he was then and the Soldier as he is now would agree on, it’s that it’s time for him to start learning to come out of the shadows and into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> If I made any glaring errors- in regards to story details, especially, but anything else as well- please do tell me; it's been a while since I saw either of the Cap movies.


End file.
